Hello I'm Mike Manley, welcome to my studio Blog. I am veteran comic and animation artist and I created and edit Draw! Magazine. This blog is a chronicle of what's happening in my studio. Follow my process and path as an painter, cartoonist and teacher and find out how they inform and enrich each other!

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Saturday Mix: The Commonality of language

Today I'm posting a bit of a mix that I think shows what I am doing as an artist on a weekly, daily basis. The range of art or images I work with as both a student and as a working cartoonist/illustrator. It is so typical of my life to spend one part of the day working in a completely different way, thinking in a different way, in essence having a completely different voice or using a different language. Now some of the root of the language is common, like perspective, anatomy, line, volume, tone, etc, but drawing from observation or drawing from imagination are really different worlds, especially when you factor in that commercially I work in very different ways. This faux new Yorker style cartoon has some similarities with the Batman character designs I am doing, or even closed form drawing I might do in class, but really not much with the painting I might be doing maybe outside of the compositional issues.

For some this might be too "scitzo" to deal with, but it's something I have always done in a way, since I was a kid. I might like or copy Neal Adams drawings but still love Kirby, or Chuck Jones or NC Wyeth. I was and still am constantly being bombarded by multipule infulences or languages visually, school of thought and ways of working that seem to even clash. Each artist has something unique about the way they put down a mark, make a statement visually. Even those artists who must camleon-like blend together like the Disney animators still had individual personality come through in their drawings.

Unlike many artists, critics and worse--TEACHERS I don't have that prejudice between a drawing by Degas or Rembrant and one by Kirby, Schulz or Glen Kean. Instead I am looking for and drawing upon the commanality in the works, "what works" in all good drawings and paintings as well as the specifics, the difference or the articulations of the language that each medium or piece requires to be successful.

I realize of course the reasons any piece of art is created is where maybe the biggest differences are. Some art is created because it has to be created, the artist feels so compelled, so infused or pregnant with the idea they must give it birth, spit it out. Some art is created simply to sell something, a magazine, illustrate a concept or product, to make you laugh, etc. The last year or so has been a very important one as it has helped me better define my thinking and language on these issues and subjects and caused me to both examine and draw upon all I do and to also seperate or draw distinctions that help also clarify my work and my better articulate my language as it were. This is something that is really endless and something all good artists I think must do all of their creative life, this process has also I think helped me not only be a better more focused artist, but in turn be a better teacher.

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DRAW! Magazine NO.34 ON SALE NOW!

Draw #34 takes you from Middle Earth to a Galaxy Far Far Away with award-winning illustrator Greg Hildebrandt! As one of the Hildebrandt Brothers (along with his late brother Tim), Greg has been charging our imaginations for almost 60 years, and now Draw! goes in-depth with this Grand Master to reveal his techniques and working methods. Then we dive under the waves with Brad Walker (Aquaman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Birds of Prey, Legends of the Dark Knight) for a how-to interview and demo. Plus there’s regular columnist Jerry Ordway’s tutorial, Jamar Nicholas reviewing the latest art supplies, and Bret Blevins and Draw! editor Mike Manley’s Comic Art Bootcamp complete the circle of artistic goodness.